Maria Shreve

Dr. DeVries

English 5870

17 March 2009

            My initial reaction after reading Culture on the Page: Experience, Rhetoric and Aesthetics in Ethnographic Writing by Bonnie Sunstein is that I had no idea when I enrolled in English 5870 that I would have the opportunity to read such beautifully written narratives.  Given the fact that the writers also incorporate the other characteristics of ethnographic writing such as the research, the balance between story-telling and information, and all within the expectations of academic writing, it truly is an amazing genre, if it can be considered that.  In particular, I found the manner in which Sunstein included excerpts from both her own book, Composing a Culture and Barbara Myerhoff’s book Number Our Days, a remarkable way for the reader to become acquainted with the nuances of this type of writing.

            Sunstein believes that ethnographers study sites of verbal performance and that because of this, it is necessary to see the culture we are researching in two perspectives – our perspective and well as the informants’.  As a result, both perspectives need to be combined into the text.  I remember that in one of our earlier class discussions, a student asked if ethnographic writing was similar to “Gonzo Journalism,” and, interestingly, here she states that due to the cultural focus of ethnographic writing, it differs from many other forms of nonfiction, including reminiscence, oral history, character sketch, and new journalism, which I believe is the broader term for Gonzo Journalism. In conducting ethnographic research, Sunstein suggests including key focus questions such as, “Where is the culture?” This question corresponded exactly to an excerpt of Myerhoff’s in which Sunstein notes, “she establishes the center is a culture…” (181).  Sunstein also gives the reader basic information, such as that “convention dictates that the researcher simultaneously explain her arrival upon the scene and incite her reader into a position upon the text.”  However, rather than simply making this a “how to” on ethnographic writing, the excerpts add additional meaning and depth to the piece (182). This explaining continues as she explains her thought process, with comments such as she “knew that what she wrote would involve an ethical balance of storytelling and information” (183). With that she is establishing a relationship with the reader.  She reminds the reader that both she and Myerhoff use literary devices such as metaphor and that Myerhoff uses the device of foreshadowing, devices that typically are used in narratives.

            She also describes the actual data collection that is involved in ethnographic writing, the field notes, expanded field notes, analytical memos, tapes and transcripts, photos and other artifacts, as well as the rhetorical choices that they have to make to represent their work (189).  She states, “Like a vivid and satisfying poem, a well-written ethnography needs artful design to allow the reader in.”  Sunstein notes that critics of Myerhoff claim that her work is not scholarly enough and that it does not have the ‘theoretical and conceptual trappings of the scientist’ and equate it with fiction, rather than social science (191).  Sunstein notes quite simply, “There is an assumption that if an ethnographic account is engaging, it cannot be scientific.”  However, she sees it as “…a dazzling display of academic performance, rich with a researcher’s personal ethic, scholarly inquiry, and the techniques of rhetorical and aesthetic craft” (192).

            I was impressed with this piece of ethnographic writing, and I have a much better grasp of what it entails and that thought process that goes along with it.